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| Fig. 1: Windscale Reactor power plant in UK. (Source: Wikimedia Commons) |
On October 10, 1957 in Sellafield, United Kingdom, Windscale Nuclear Reactor (see Fig. 1) caught fire. This was recorded as the largest Nuclear incident in Great Britain's history. The fire lasted three days and resulted in a large release of radioactive contamination that reached across Europe.
After the Manhattan Project, the UK started its own nuclear program and expedited the development of nuclear weapons technology. In four short years, two Windscale Piles were built in Cumbria. Each of the reactors had graphite moderators, weighing 2,000 metric tons, and were fuelled by 180 metric tons of uranium metal. The reactors manufactured plutonium used for nuclear weapons as well as the polonium and tritium used as fission triggers. [1] A larger issue came about when the thermometers were not located in the right place causing the reactor to exceed the temperature of 400°C. This marked the highest temperature the reactor ever reached. In the following days, fans failed to cool down the pile, fuel cartridges were found to be incredibly hot, and flames were discovered at the back of the pile. On October 11, numerous efforts were taken to extinguish the fire. At 4:30 am, carbon dioxide was pumped into the pile, but this proved to be ineffective. At 8:55, water was turned on, changing from an initial water flow of 300 gallons per minute, to 800 gallons per minute, to 1,000 gallons a minute at 12:00pm. The water flow continued until the next day, when the reactor finally cooled down to a stable temperature. [3]
The Windscale accident affected food supplies in England, specifically the milk supply. Castle pastures were feared to be contaminated with radioactive byproducts. Upon further investigation, officials found high levels of I-131 in the milk from the cows that had grazed on contaminated pasture. [3] In order to be safe, you would have to wait many half-lives of the radioactive iodine. Due to public anxiety, the condemned milk was thrown out, even though it could have been salvaged for use in livestock feedings or manufacturing processes. You still have to worry about small amounts of radioiodine in the soil because biological processes concentrate iodine through the grass that cows eat. [4] The officials did a competent job of reacting quickly to prevent panic. [5]
© Jaiden Delaire. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] M. Ramadan, "The Windscale Fire," Physics 241, Stanford University, Winter 2016.
[2] S. Min, "The Windscale Fire : A Disaster and its Consequences in Great Britain," Physics 241, Stanford University, Winter 2018.
[3] C. N. Hill, An Atomic Empire: A Technical History of the Rise and Fall of the British Atomic Energy Programme (Imperial College Press, 2013).
[4] A. H. Wolff, "Milk Contamination in the Windscale Incident," Public Health Rep. 74, 42 (1959).
[5] T. Dadabbo, "Windscale and its Underlying Effect on the Milk Supply," Physics 241, Stanford University, Winter 2017.
